Fijian police raided the vice-chancellor’s home at the prestigious University of the South Pacific at midnight and summarily deported him at the behest of the prime minister, in a move described by the students as a “coup” and compared by the team to the “Gestapo tactics”.
Up to 15 immigration officers, police and military invaded Pal Ahluwalia’s home in Suva on Wednesday night, revoked his work permit and escorted the vice-chancellor and his wife, Sandra Price, to Nadi International Airport. He was then forced into a military guard flight to Australia on Thursday.
Ahluwalia’s previous exposure to allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement under previous university administrations angered the Fijian government.
“This is a classic case of beating the whistleblower,” Ahluwalia told ABC.
For decades, the University of the South Pacific (USP) has been a bright light in the region, where they studied the best and brightest of all the islands. Collective ownership of 12 Pacific states – with campus as a whole – has produced generations of regional leaders and has been the melting pot of pan-peaceful political movements on independence and democratization.
Ahluwalia, a Canadian born in Kenya, was appointed to USP in 2019 with a mandate to modernize and reform the institution and wrote a report detailing allegations of widespread financial mismanagement, abuse of rights and millions of dollars spent unduly under previous administrations, which she won the ire of the government in Fiji, where the main campus of the university is located.
Price said on Wednesday night, police and immigration officials threatened to break down doors, surrounding the house from the front and the back.
“I was instructed to dress and they confiscated all electronic devices, including phones, iPads, laptops, watches and passports. I was not left alone to change or even use the bathroom. Where were my moral and human rights? There were at least 15 people in our home after the curfew. “
The couple was on a flight to Brisbane less than 12 hours later, with a letter stating that they had been declared “prohibited immigrants” by Fiji’s immigration minister, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who ordered the couple’s deportation with immediate effect .
Photos posted on social media showed the couple boarding a flight around 11 am under police custody.
Ahluwalia’s conduct, said his deportation notice, was said to be “detrimental to peace, defense, public security, public order, public morality, public health, security or good government in the Fiji Islands”. The Fiji government said the couple was deported for unspecified “repeated violations” of immigration law and visa conditions.
There was a police presence on USP’s Laucala campus in Suva, shortly after the news of the deportation, widely seen as a scare tactic to avoid protests by students and staff.
The association of USP employees and unions led the chorus of criticism that followed the move, accusing the Fijian government of using “Gestapo tactics” and “non-Pasifika behavior” to remove the vice chancellor in a “violation of rights human rights and due process ”.
Former USP economics professor Biman Prasad, now leader of Fiji’s oldest political party, the National Federation party, said the government was behaving like “bullies and thugs” and that Bainimarama should “immediately terminate the deportation order. ”.
A staff member told the Guardian, on condition of anonymity: “This is nothing short of a coup by the Fiji government against USP and its VC. This is the government forcibly imposing its will on USP employees and students who overwhelmingly support this VC. “
Ahluwalia’s 2019 report on USP alleged widespread financial mismanagement within the university, abuse of rights, unearned promotions and millions of dollars spent unduly under previous administrations seen as politically close allies of the Bainimarama government.
The allegations of impropriety were dismissed by former university officials who deny any wrongdoing.
Ahluwalia’s report was publicly leaked, triggering intense university scrutiny and an independent investigation by New Zealand-based accounting firm BDO.
The 114-page BDO report, which also leaked, substantiated some of the allegations and said that further investigation was needed along with “stronger supervision” by the university council.